Black Pastors Encourage Their Congregations to Support The Occupy Wall Street Movement

The Occupy movement has been decidedly white. You may not have heard that, as you did about the Tea Party movement, just as you didn’t hear about the anti war movement being overwhelmingly white. That’s because the media wanted a certain narrative out there regarding the Tea Party movement. Heaven forbid they mention the many black Tea Party speakers, but so far, the Occupy Movement hasn’t even had that.

The Rev. Harold Mayberry stood before his First African Methodist Episcopal Church congregation Sunday morning in Oakland and outlined how it was time for members to connect with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Nationally, many African American leaders have acknowledged a disconnect between the Occupy Wall Street movement and the larger black community.

Mayberry is among nearly two dozen prominent African American Bay Area pastors trying to bridge that gap at the community level through a growing national effort that is ramping up today – Martin Luther King Jr. Day – called Occupy the Dream.

The pastors are asking their congregation to protest with their wallet:

In February, the pastors will ask their congregants to withdraw a small amount of money – at least $30 – from their bank accounts and deposit it in either a credit union or a minority-owned bank.

If that symbolic move doesn’t get the attention of “Wall Street banks,” as Mayberry described the nation’s largest financial institutions, then in March, Occupy the Dream will ask larger African American-dominated institutions, churches and black professionals to begin transferring greater amounts to credit unions.

I’m not sure they have the same goals as Occupy Wall Street, or if they understand who they should be protesting.

On OWS’s web site they say “#ows is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations.”

Like that old movie character, Obama seems capable of effortlessly floating between demonizing Wall Street gambling one day and profiting from it the next.

The audacity is breathtaking.

The president has raised more money from Wall Street through the Democratic National Committee and his campaign account than any politician in American history. This year alone, he has raked in more cash from bank employees, hedge fund managers and financial services companies than all Republican candidates combined.

Even poor Mitt Romney was outraised by the Obama money machine at his former employer, Bain Capital, by a margin of 2 to 1.

It is a campaign operation whose wheels are greased by Wall Street bundlers like MF Global former chief, Jon Corzine. These financiers are so good at what they do that the Center for Responsive Politics reports that Obama’s Wall Street fundraising will “far surpass 2008 in terms of raw dollars and as a percentage of what he raises overall.”

All the big evil Wall Street big wigs; Goldman Sachs, AIG, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup, ALL funded Obama as he ate with them at fat cat fundraisers.: Wonder if these pastor’s congregations are aware of that? And are they, or the pastors, aware that under Obama, those Wall Street fat cats have made out like bandits under Obama? It seems their donations were well invested:

Obama’s fake outrage is all the more preposterous considering that the White House’s policies have led to record profits on Wall Street during the first two years of the Obama administration. In fact, Wall Street amassed more profits in the first two years of the Obama presidency than all eight of George W. Bush’s combined.

Perhaps the President and other Democrats should stop taking donations from Wall Street if they are so offended by their actions. And perhaps the Occupy Wall Street movement wouldn’t look like such a joke if they didn’t stop ignoring this fact. : Perhaps they would have some credibility if they protested the most powerful office in the land for their part in Wall Street greed?

While Obama was slamming : Bank of America’s decision to levy a $5 monthly fee on debit card users, it might have been useful if media outlets reporting that had also reported at the same time that: President Obama had received more money from Bank of America than any other candidate dating back to 1991.

It’s difficult to claim to be fighting against the same people who are funding your every move. But Obama does it, and the media pretty much let’s him get away with it.